I may not have the best dates ever, but at least they're the fastest

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Monthly Archives: July 2010

The first few sentences of your online dating profile are important. You want to distinguish yourself from the many other fish in the sea, and attract people to you. This guy does really well on the first task, but I’m not so sure about the second.

“I’m pretty sure this will sound like a bitter rant but I’m going to say it anyway. If you don’t like the way it sounds we probably
wouldn’t get along anyway. I’ve connected with a couple decent people on here but to me it seems like most of the women on here are snobby c***s.”

On the bright side, I probably wouldn’t have to compete with a lot of other women for his attention.

You’re probably wondering what this old Chinese lady is doing. Believe it or not, she’s speed dating!

A reader led me to this website which promotes an alternate version of speed dating. If you could read Chinese (no, I can’t either), you would learn that these speed dates involve the parents of singles rather than the daters themselves. Mom (and I suppose Dad, too, but what are the chances of that?) makes up a sheet with the single child’s relevant information–photo, education, job–and then goes to a park to hunt down some future in-laws. A park works for these speed dates, I guess, because desperate would-be grandmas don’t need alcohol to lather their conversations. If they find a match at one of these events (which usually have themes like “doctors and lawyers” or “waiters,” my source said– no “hot for teacher” nights here), they exchange the kids’ contact info.

This sounds crazily foreign and antithetical to the American spirit of self-determination. Except that we have something kind of similar here, on MTV. It’s a show called “Date My Mom” and it involves a guy going on dates with three different moms and deciding, based on the experiences, which daughter he wants to date. The secret to success seems to be having a mom who dresses slutty and talks a lot about how hot and wild her daughter is.

You see where this is leading, right? I’m composing my dossier right now (a couple photos, a few blog posts) and then I’ll be putting Mama Speed Dating Girl in a tube top and on a plane. Watch out, China!

At the request of a reader (thanks for taking my hint, Hulali Leigh!), this week I’ll tell the story of how I almost became Carmella Soprano. Also known as my one very short date with an Algerian drug dealer.

Like so many beautiful romances, ours started in a dark Italian alley while one of my friends was buying drugs from one of his. Despite the barriers of language (neither one of us spoke each other’s language, and we both spoke pretty lousy Italian), he managed to ask me out and, for reasons I no longer remember (but probably that William Hurt was hot in TheBig Chill), I accepted.

We met at a coffee shop, and for the two minutes that it takes to drink an espresso standing up, things went well. But then, short of ideas and funds (apparently drug dealing doesn’t pay as well in reality as the movies), he decided to hold the rest of our date on a wall behind a church. We sat, we made out, and then, disastrously, we tried to hold a conversation. He wanted to tell me about his favorite musicians, but, as I explained to him, of course I had never heard of these obscure Europeans. No, no, I would know this one, he insisted, pronouncing the name over and over again in his heavy accent.

Finally, I understood. He was saying, “Mariah Carey.” And that was it. I may be willing to date a drug dealer who can’t even afford to buy me lunch and doesn’t speak my language. But a guy who listens to Mariah? That’s too much to ask.

The WordPress blogging software helpfully provides a list of recent search terms that led people to your blog. And while many of them are pretty mundane, a few have piqued my interest. For example, I really wish that I could get the rest of the story behind “inappropriate texting with secretary” and “each wife swapped a room key.” Sounds like a wild and crazy blog post in the making.

I imagine a sadder story– specifically, a girl sitting home alone with only a computer to cuddle– in the search for “boyfriend on speeddate.” But I can’t even guess what could lead one odd Googler to ask, “when is a sidewalk fully dressed.”

I have no good answers to that question. After a snowfall maybe, or only when it’s smiling?

I am pleased to report, however, that I think Speed Dating Girl will offer useful knowledge to a few of you weird web searchers. Yes, you’ve got my sympathy, and a lot of additional evidence, person who searched “speed dating is bullshit.” And, while I’m clearly not what you’re looking for, I can only hope that some valuable insight was provided to the guy who was looking for “dating girl who know martial arts.”